Ah, childbirth. That lovely moment when the child you’ve been waiting to meet for months finally comes into the world and brings with it all the joys that come with parenthood. If you’re a woman, that moment also equates to the feeling of your body being ripped into bits as you forcefully expel a new human being from your body. (Sorry if you’re drinking your morning tea as you read this!)

Like the rest of the female population around the world, Japanese women are no strangers to the pains of birthing a child. Below, we have gathered eleven of amusing anecdotes that have been shared over social media relating to their pregnancies, the hysterical states they were in during childbirth, and the time after their child’s birth. And don’t miss the one story at the end that will positively melt your heart.

Some video game and anime fans are happy and satisfied with having just a 2-D waifu to satisfy their romantic fantasies. After all, a waifu would never lament that your salary is too low, or snoop around your messages and emails checking for traces of cheating, and she would always look as hot as when you first met her. Sounds perfect, but then, who is going to inherit yours and your sweet waifu’s genes of awesomeness?

A Chinese cosplay photographer has the best of both dimensions with his waifu Kongou, I mean, his wife who does an adorable cosplay of Kongou, and they have recently been in the spotlight on Weibo due to her pregnant Kongou cosplay shots.

Receiving any kind of medical treatment in a foreign country can be a daunting experience. And when one of the writers from our sister site Pouch gave birth to her second child in the United States, where she was living at the time, she was naturally expecting the procedures to be different from her native Japan. But there were a number of things that shocked, amazed and downright confused her about giving birth in the US – not least the incredible cost incurred.

Have you ever wondered what happened to Anna after the Disney movie Frozen ended? Well, according to one iPhone app maker, Anna married her new beau Kristoff and immediately got pregnant. She’s nine months in and in need of a C-section. But who will perform the surgery?!You will, with this silly new app available on the Apple app store.

A hospital in China wants to help men empathise with the pain their partner feels during childbirth – by rigging them up to an electronic device that allows men to experience it for themselves. Doctors in Jinan, Shandong Province, use electric shock machines to stimulate men’s abdomens, causing pain that’s supposed to be just as awful as contractions and full-on labour pains.

Sure, the pictures of men screwing up their faces are funny. But on the subject of baby-making in China, this “project” is missing the point.

We all know that nature can be cruel at times. Even when something as wonderful as the birth of a new baby is involved, nature — in the form of genetic fate — can dole out unexpected and not always favorable challenges. And now, as technology makes genetic screening of fetuses easier than in the past, the big question more and more parents-to-be will likely be facing is, do you actively want to know beforehand if something may not be quite right with the little one you’re expecting. Here in Japan, some early data on a new prenatal screening procedure has recently been announced, providing us with some sobering food for thought, and we thought we’d share with you a summary of the reports.